I put in my 2 weeks in at the retail job I'm at now. Been working retail jobs for 11 or so years now. I have some money saved up for the next few months and going to find a job out retail. I would rather get raped by an elephant than go back again.
It was "Welcome to [undisclosed location]. You have very nice skin by the way" *slight pause* "Are you a dermatologist?"
Customer was like "holy shit I just came in to look at fudge"
Refused to serve a woman the other day because she was being a grade-A cunt.
Me and two other colleagues were on the till, me filling a form out and the other two serving. It'd been busy all day and I was preparing to leave the till when I hear someone scream 'excuse me' toward me. So, I look up, give it my best retail face and ask her if she's okay. Her response was to simply stare at me. Like, I'm talking a thousand-yard glare here. So I repeat 'sorry, are you alright there?' Assuming she was maybe talking to someone else.
Her response - "When I say excuse me, I expect you to come to me!".
Now. It'd been a long day. I was tired, I was fed up of my shitty job and I don't like people who feel so self- entitled.
So I walked over, gritting my teeth and I said 'right, what's it you need help with today?"
She then proceeded to yell abuse me at me about how my colleagues are all useless and shit. How we were all stood on till doing nothing while she badly needed help. (She hadn't said a thing and it was clear two members of staff were serving while I was filling a form out *for another customer*).
So, by this point, I'm getting pretty pissed off. She's calling us useless, she's telling us that we're shit and that we're all crap at our jobs.
So, I take a step back and I politely say "there's not need to be rude to me."
Well; clearly asking for common courtesy is the worst a 'shopbot' can do because she immediately pops off.
"I will be as rude as I want to crap staff members like yourself! You're all bloody useless here, what's it you even do?! You're crap!"
I looked her up and down with resting bitch face and simply said 'well, you keep being rude so I'm definitely not serving you today."
Walked off and she followed me to the till area. Starting screaming abuse at me and my colleagues, I shout at her on her way out 'try not being so rude in future!'
My colleagues found it hilarious and one of them genuinely thought me and her were going to get into some sort of cat fight. She responded with a few fucks yous. Haven't seen her since.
First time I've ever refused someone for being rude. I never thought I had it in me but there you go. Glad I didn't swear at her; that was hard not to do.
This morning, I had a customer coming in to set up a personal account (she'd been licensed for a number of years, just had always used the shop account) so I got her info and got that started.
So this other woman, who'd been trawling the clearance section and nowhere else, comes over about 30 seconds after I start setting up this account, wanting to pay for her stuff. I was alone, and we can't shove other people aside to ring someone out, so I just made her wait, which enraged her. She spat her phone number at me and got offended when I asked for her driver's license, which is our policy if you don't have your card and we've never fucking seen you before, and then she got offended again when I asked if she'd like me to make her a new card. I explained, again, that our search function is buggy and it's better to have one in case, but she just said, "I've never had a problem," grabbed her shit, and left. And then she called back later for my manager's name and a time she'd be around, because I'm apparently such a fucking asshole for making her wait a fucking minute and offering to *SHOCK! HORROR!* help her. When you're a bigger asshole than the biggest asshole that shops with us, there's a problem, y'know?
It's like this other bitch who came in on Saturday. She got mad when I told her we couldn't honor a deal from fucking April (some sale tags had been missed) and she got mad when I told her a thing she'd asked for was discontinued. Like, I've known this woman for three Goddamn years, she knows that I know the store inside-out, and she actually rolled her eyes at me and shook her head. All because I told her some facts. I'm such a jerk, you guys.
Not quite retail, but it's a job experience my mum's been telling me about.
She decided to start working from home for a cable company as part of their tech support. However, she was thrown a curveball when she was told that she'd also be trying to pitch sales alongside of helping people fix their shit. Obviously, that's not the kind of thing you want to hear when you want to have your cable box to work.
Other employees were upset about this too. She did mention that someone proposed some sort of lawsuit against the company, but couldn't remember what for, though it was stupid.
She left said company really recently, and joined another, but the old one is all but begging her to come back. There was a check in the mail for money from that employer, for the sales she'd done. It was for thirteen dollars. Just this morning, she got an email saying they want her to start going to their training. For a laugh, she's waiting to see what kind of schedule they give her.
Here are two stories, going under spoilers. I used to work at a (dying) major department store, and I sold tools, fitness equipment, and lawn and garden stuff.
One day, this middle aged man who was clearly going through a midlife crisis came into my department. I was working an 8 hour shift by myself (which very rarely became a problem, because no one shopped there), and I was just kinda chilling at the register waiting for the man to come up to get rung up. He was this tiny, skinny man with greased-back black hair and a receding hairline. He kept looking over at me and doing that creepy man once-over thing while he was browsing, and then I guess he eventually mustered up some courage, because he swaggered on over to my register. Only instead of standing on the opposite side of the counter from me, he slightly off to my left. Normally when a customer does that, it's no big deal. This guy, however, was trying to talk me up.
"Yeah. I was kinda surprised when I was put down here, too."
"That's kinda hot. Are you into cars?"
"No, sorry."
"That's a shame. That'd make you even hotter."
I gave him an awkward, uncomfortable "heh", and tried to get through the rest of his purchases on my old as fuck register. The song "Pretty Woman" had been playing over the speakers, so he decided try his luck again.
"Have you ever seen Pretty Woman?"
"No, but I've heard about it."
He handed me his credit card and said, "You know, you remind me of Julia Roberts's character."
I just stood there and looked at him. Bro.
"Oh--uh not saying that you're a prostitute or anything like that!"
I swiped his card (the reader was on the keyboard if that gives you an idea of how old the register is), handed him his stuff, and he scurried out of my department.
I was lurking in the lawn and garden section when this little old lady came up to me asking about our weed whackers. She said she was looking for an electric one, something small and not too heavy. She told me all about how she lived in a town home and didn't have much of a yard, so she didn't need something big and heavy duty. She also needed a cable that would go 100 feet, and she really stressed to me that the weed whacker needed to have that feature
I took her over to our wall of electric weed whackers. She looked very puzzled, and then proclaimed that they weren't electric weed whackers, and she needed an electric one. I pointed out to her that they were, in fact, electric, and I even showed her our gas ones for comparison. That's when it started.
"These have batteries. They're not electric; they're battery-powered."
"They have a battery because they're electric. Otherwise, they'd run on gas like the other ones."
"No, these are battery-powered. I need an electric one that plugs in."
"These do plug in. Here, look."
"But they have batteries."
"Because they're electric."
"If they're electric, then why do they have batteries?"
"Because that's their power source."
"Then why do they have the plug if they run on a big battery?"
"So that you can charge them or just use them with a power cable."
"But look, this one doesn't even have a cable. It's not electric."
"You plug an extension cable into there, because it's electric."
And it was just this awful circle of "It's electric" "But it has a battery!" "Because it's electric". She was clearly starting to get annoyed with me, so I called over one of my coworkers to help me out. I told him exactly what was going on, and that she refused to believe me when I told her that a battery-powered weed whacker, that you can plug in if you want, that does not run on gas, is electric.
He asked her what it was she was looking for.
"I just want an electric weed whacker, but she keeps showing me battery powered ones! Those aren't electric!"
"These ARE electric, though. The battery is what powers the weed whacker, and then you can plug it in and recharge the battery."
"Oh! Well I wish she had explained that to me. Could have saved me all sorts of trouble!"
He rung her up under my number so that I'd get the sale, she went on her merry way with her electric weed whacker (and new 100ft cable), and my coworker and I had laugh about the encounter.
I had a rude customer recently too. As I've probably mentioned (pages back) I work outdoors in retail, though I also have an indoor section that sells landscaping tools like lawn mowers and weed-eaters and shit. I'm a woman in my twenties but I look young enough that I still get mistaken for a teenager from time to time, so I'm sure you can imagine how that works out for me in a job that involves loading heavy shit and selling power tools.
So after loading 150 or so pavers (I don't remember the exact number at this point but 150 is a pretty common number of pavers that people buy) I get called in for a customer that needs help with weed-eaters. So I'm hot, I'm sweaty, exhausted, and my face is red, (manual labor plus the Florida heat, what can you do?) and I come in to greet the guy and see what he needs. He shows me an air filter and says he needs to replace it.
Now I'm not sure how familiar you guys are with air filters, but they all look surprisingly distinct from one another, especially compared to spark plugs. The air filter this guy was holding looked like nothing that I carried in my store. So I ask him, "So, what brand of weed eater did this come off of?"
His response: "Where's a man? You look like you just don't want to help me today." Actually, dumbass, I look like I'm overheating. Sorry it doesn't make me look as friendly as the lady from the progressive commercials.
I just kind of raise an eyebrow at him. "I don't have a man working with me today. I need to know what brand of weed-eater this air filter was for to find your replacement."
"This is a Stihl!" Ah. That's why it's an air filter I don't carry. Stihl is one of those professional-grade brands, and they make their own replacement parts EXCLUSIVELY for their own tools. Other than a couple of chainsaw blades, I don't carry anything that will fit a Stihl.
"I'm sorry sir, we don't carry parts for Stihl--"
"THEN WHAT'S THIS!?" He goes over to the shelf, and picks up a tune-up kit for Echo. The air filter inside is completely different.
"Sir, that's a tune up kit for Echo."
"I KNOW THAT!" He's screaming at me at this point. I'm getting a little confused with this guy at this point, and he can probably tell that I have no fucking clue what he's getting at.
"Echo parts only work for Echo, sir. It won't fit your Stihl."
And I shit you not, this is what he says to me. "YOU'RE A FUCKING LIAR. GET ME A MAN OVER HERE WHO KNOWS WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT."
Nah. Just nah. I don't have time for this shit and I never will. I ended up leaving him there without saying anything and went back outside to suffer in the heat instead. I told my managers about it later (both on staff that day were women) and they laughed and told me I should have called a man over that didn't know shit. I've done that song and dance before though, and it's not really satisfying to have said clueless man call me back over and I have to deal with the customer's shit all over again.
And the thing is, I know where all the Stihl dealers are in the city. If a customer needs Stihl, I'd be happy to send them to those other businesses. They aren't bad businesses and I don't make commission, so sending them to somebody who can help them isn't an issue. But if you're going to be an ass to me, well... good luck running your Stihl tools without an air filter. Or coming back to return the Echo parts you wasted time and money on.
Here are two stories, going under spoilers. I used to work at a (dying) major department store, and I sold tools, fitness equipment, and lawn and garden stuff.
I was lurking in the lawn and garden section when this little old lady came up to me asking about our weed whackers. She said she was looking for an electric one, something small and not too heavy. She told me all about how she lived in a town home and didn't have much of a yard, so she didn't need something big and heavy duty. She also needed a cable that would go 100 feet, and she really stressed to me that the weed whacker needed to have that feature
I took her over to our wall of electric weed whackers. She looked very puzzled, and then proclaimed that they weren't electric weed whackers, and she needed an electric one. I pointed out to her that they were, in fact, electric, and I even showed her our gas ones for comparison. That's when it started.
"These have batteries. They're not electric; they're battery-powered."
"They have a battery because they're electric. Otherwise, they'd run on gas like the other ones."
"No, these are battery-powered. I need an electric one that plugs in."
"These do plug in. Here, look."
"But they have batteries."
"Because they're electric."
"If they're electric, then why do they have batteries?"
"Because that's their power source."
"Then why do they have the plug if they run on a big battery?"
"So that you can charge them or just use them with a power cable."
"But look, this one doesn't even have a cable. It's not electric."
"You plug an extension cable into there, because it's electric."
And it was just this awful circle of "It's electric" "But it has a battery!" "Because it's electric". She was clearly starting to get annoyed with me, so I called over one of my coworkers to help me out. I told him exactly what was going on, and that she refused to believe me when I told her that a battery-powered weed whacker, that you can plug in if you want, that does not run on gas, is electric.
He asked her what it was she was looking for.
"I just want an electric weed whacker, but she keeps showing me battery powered ones! Those aren't electric!"
"These ARE electric, though. The battery is what powers the weed whacker, and then you can plug it in and recharge the battery."
"Oh! Well I wish she had explained that to me. Could have saved me all sorts of trouble!"
He rung her up under my number so that I'd get the sale, she went on her merry way with her electric weed whacker (and new 100ft cable), and my coworker and I had laugh about the encounter.
I'd like to point out that on a professional level, most people do mean tools that run on an extension cord when asking for electric. Even on the packaging, weed eaters will call themselves electric when they need to be plugged in, or battery/cordless when they run on battery. Now, I know that ones that have both the cord and the battery exist (I don't currently sell any though), batteries add more weight to the tool, which can be tiring for somebody too old to do it for very long.
I've had that happen before, only it was in regards to a power drill. This guy holding a battery walked up to me, went to place the battery in my hands, then ripped it away and said "Actually, I want a man's opinion." and walked off to find one of my male coworkers. His question, that apparently only a man could answer for him, was whether a 19.2 volt battery would work on his 16 volt drill. He thought it would make his drill more efficient.
I'd like to point out that on a professional level, most people do mean tools that run on an extension cord when asking for electric. Even on the packaging, weed eaters will call themselves electric when they need to be plugged in, or battery/cordless when they run on battery. Now, I know that ones that have both the cord and the battery exist (I don't currently sell any though), batteries add more weight to the tool, which can be tiring for somebody too old to do it for very long.
Those are good points. Our department was kinda small, so our selection for weed whackers was 2 cycle, 4 cycle, or the electric one that was battery and corded. Fortunately, part of our song and dance also involved me letting her hold the display models so she could feel the differences between the gas ones and the electric/battery one. Ours ended up being light enough for her, luckily.
I've had that happen before, only it was in regards to a power drill. This guy holding a battery walked up to me, went to place the battery in my hands, then ripped it away and said "Actually, I want a man's opinion." and walked off to find one of my male coworkers. His question, that apparently only a man could answer for him, was whether a 19.2 volt battery would work on his 16 volt drill. He thought it would make his drill more efficient.
I don't consider that to be an excuse. You can be a sexist asshole and still have some sort of common sense. I don't see how hating women would drive somebody to try shoving a car battery into their lawn mower, y'know?
Still on night stock in the grocery store. I've been promoted to full-time and got a pay raise and a damn good performance review, which ... isn't where I want to be, honestly, since I'd rather have a different job, but more money is good. I've also collected more weird customer experiences, because life apparently enjoys taunting me with things so stupid or cliche that I can never put them in books.
I've divided them into separate spoilers to avoid TL;DR. Apologies for the length--I've been there over a year, and I have a lot of stories built up. Pick your poison.
The Leviathan Lady is one of those infuriating customers who, while being sweet and helpless, will suck out your soul and ruin any hope you had of getting out on time. This is because you, as a store employee, cannot possibly justify refusing service to a shaky-voiced elderly woman who just wants one thing more, please, can you fetch that for me, I can't stand up very well these days, thank you ... And before you know it, two hours have passed, and she just wants one thing more, please ...
It's never the one thing she wants, either. Ten-ounce bag of raisins? She wants a bigger bag. Fourteen-ounce bag? She wants a smaller bag. They don't make a size in between? She's sure they do. Will you look again, please?
I call her the Leviathan Lady because of a conversation I had with her once. I'd gotten snared in her web while trying to stock the chip aisle, and she was after Chex Mix in a bag size far beyond even what American manufacturers will produce. After the Giant-Size bag failed to please, I jokingly suggested "leviathan-sized." She'd never heard the word. Asked for a definition, made me spell it three times then write it down for her. Then asked for a definition again.
That's the Leviathan Lady in a nutshell. Any interaction with her balloons beyond all reasonable size. There have been nights where she's already in there shopping at 10 PM (when my shift starts) and still in there at 6 AM (when the day managers come on). Her frozens dissolve into gross puddles, and she absentmindedly snacks on everything in her cart while she shops. I've left at 8 AM with her still in there, shopping.
Ayurvedic Guy is the same one from my previous post, who tried to return a cart of four-month-old food. Unfortunately, the more I encountered him the sadder his tale became. You see, the reason Ayurvedic Guy had four-month-old food is that his mother has dementia and forgot it in her car trunk back in September. While we still don't accept mold colony returns, that got him some sympathy among the night staff.
Unfortunately, he's trying to cure his mother with--you guessed it--Ayurvedic medicine. I got to hear all about it while I was bagging up his organic produce. Apparently, Western doctors are concealing the valuable knowledge of the ancients in order to make lots of money. He also praised Hippocrates and said Hippocratic medicine was nearly perfect.
Now, as evidenced by my membership in these forums, I am a massive sperg. And one of the things I sperg about is medical history. So I pointed out (gently, mind you, I don't want to get fired over this shit) that Hippocratic medicine advocated bleeding for hemorrhages and that Ayurvedic medicine, while having many good points by the standards of ancient care, held to their own version of the four humors and didn't really understand anatomy. Ayurvedic Guy was unconvinced, and gave me the names of several websites where I could go to learn the truth about the manipulative, lying Western medical industry. Then he went off to continue curing his mother's dementia with ... God only knows. I don't know what the Sushruta Samhita recommended for mental illness, but the vaidyas didn't even have a word for the friggin' lungs, so my main hope is that he's doing a woo-woo hippie version of it that substitutes crystals for venesection.
Some of the crew thinks the Leviathan Lady is actually Ayurvedic Guy's mother. If so, that's ... really sad.
The Trump Preacher is about fifty, balding, thin in that jogger-ish sort of way, and usually wearing a college t-shirt. He wants me to use my checkstand as some kind of pulpit for spreading the word that Donald Trump is a monster. I use the words preacher and pulpit for a reason--he talks with a fire-and-brimstone passion, going on about how it's my responsibility to spread the word! America will fall if we don't! All right-thinking citizens MUST stand up against this MENACE and CAN I GET AN AMEN?
No. Please pay for your $175 of groceries and leave, sir, there's six people behind you.
And finally ...
The Fucking Ordering Department. That is their official job title among the night crew and it will be until they fix their fucking shit.
We are a big store, but the Fucking Ordering Department is apparently under the impression that we're a lot bigger than we are, because the ordering is completely out of fucking control. I would deal with the Leviathan Lady, Ayurvedic Guy, and the Trump Preacher every night if it meant getting the ordering under fucking control. It's that bad.
Let me explain. The night crew's main job is to stock the store: the truck comes in during the day with the goods on pallets, but we're the ones who break it all down, move it into the aisles, and actually put it up on the shelves. Afterwards, we face the store--going through and dusting shelves, pulling all the goods forward so they're at the edge of the shelf, stacking cans prettily, etc. On an average night we have fifteen to twenty pallets of shit, all stacked about eight to ten feet high. Seeing my manager (who is about five foot five) breaking down a pet food pallet twice her height is a sight not easily forgotten. (Especially since ten feet of pet food in forty-pound bags each works out to Oh God Fuck Me Someone's Gonna Die.) Oh, and we're chronically understaffed: a store this size in this company should be fielding about nine crew members a night, and we're lucky if we have six.
On stock nights, we also take note of what won't go up. If I have a case of olives and the shelf is already full, I write down the lookup number and mark the case for backstock. Three nights a week, we pull out all the backstock and see what can now go up. The answer is usually "not enough": the shelves are full, we have pallets and pallets of backstock, and the Fucking Ordering Department just keeps ordering more shit we don't need.
Two nights ago, I was stocking canned green beans. There was space on the shelf for six of them. Six cans. How many were on my stack?
Four cases. Ninety-six cans.
And that shit happens all the time. We have no idea how the Fucking Ordering Department hasn't been sacked. Half the time we don't even write down numbers any more because we're getting out two hours late, the facing is suffering, and no matter what we put down it's still going to get ordered. Management brought in a corporate retrainer, yet the Fucking Ordering Department is still merrily rolling along, fucking everything up. My best guess? Someone in there knows where the bodies are buried.
Still on night stock in the grocery store. I've been promoted to full-time and got a pay raise and a damn good performance review, which ... isn't where I want to be, honestly, since I'd rather have a different job, but more money is good. I've also collected more weird customer experiences, because life apparently enjoys taunting me with things so stupid or cliche that I can never put them in books.
I've divided them into separate spoilers to avoid TL;DR. Apologies for the length--I've been there over a year, and I have a lot of stories built up. Pick your poison.
The Leviathan Lady is one of those infuriating customers who, while being sweet and helpless, will suck out your soul and ruin any hope you had of getting out on time. This is because you, as a store employee, cannot possibly justify refusing service to a shaky-voiced elderly woman who just wants one thing more, please, can you fetch that for me, I can't stand up very well these days, thank you ... And before you know it, two hours have passed, and she just wants one thing more, please ...
It's never the one thing she wants, either. Ten-ounce bag of raisins? She wants a bigger bag. Fourteen-ounce bag? She wants a smaller bag. They don't make a size in between? She's sure they do. Will you look again, please?
I call her the Leviathan Lady because of a conversation I had with her once. I'd gotten snared in her web while trying to stock the chip aisle, and she was after Chex Mix in a bag size far beyond even what American manufacturers will produce. After the Giant-Size bag failed to please, I jokingly suggested "leviathan-sized." She'd never heard the word. Asked for a definition, made me spell it three times then write it down for her. Then asked for a definition again.
That's the Leviathan Lady in a nutshell. Any interaction with her balloons beyond all reasonable size. There have been nights where she's already in there shopping at 10 PM (when my shift starts) and still in there at 6 AM (when the day managers come on). Her frozens dissolve into gross puddles, and she absentmindedly snacks on everything in her cart while she shops. I've left at 8 AM with her still in there, shopping.
Ayurvedic Guy is the same one from my previous post, who tried to return a cart of four-month-old food. Unfortunately, the more I encountered him the sadder his tale became. You see, the reason Ayurvedic Guy had four-month-old food is that his mother has dementia and forgot it in her car trunk back in September. While we still don't accept mold colony returns, that got him some sympathy among the night staff.
Unfortunately, he's trying to cure his mother with--you guessed it--Ayurvedic medicine. I got to hear all about it while I was bagging up his organic produce. Apparently, Western doctors are concealing the valuable knowledge of the ancients in order to make lots of money. He also praised Hippocrates and said Hippocratic medicine was nearly perfect.
Now, as evidenced by my membership in these forums, I am a massive sperg. And one of the things I sperg about is medical history. So I pointed out (gently, mind you, I don't want to get fired over this shit) that Hippocratic medicine advocated bleeding for hemorrhages and that Ayurvedic medicine, while having many good points by the standards of ancient care, held to their own version of the four humors and didn't really understand anatomy. Ayurvedic Guy was unconvinced, and gave me the names of several websites where I could go to learn the truth about the manipulative, lying Western medical industry. Then he went off to continue curing his mother's dementia with ... God only knows. I don't know what the Sushruta Samhita recommended for mental illness, but the vaidyas didn't even have a word for the friggin' lungs, so my main hope is that he's doing a woo-woo hippie version of it that substitutes crystals for venesection.
Some of the crew thinks the Leviathan Lady is actually Ayurvedic Guy's mother. If so, that's ... really sad.
The Trump Preacher is about fifty, balding, thin in that jogger-ish sort of way, and usually wearing a college t-shirt. He wants me to use my checkstand as some kind of pulpit for spreading the word that Donald Trump is a monster. I use the words preacher and pulpit for a reason--he talks with a fire-and-brimstone passion, going on about how it's my responsibility to spread the word! America will fall if we don't! All right-thinking citizens MUST stand up against this MENACE and CAN I GET AN AMEN?
No. Please pay for your $175 of groceries and leave, sir, there's six people behind you.
And finally ...
The Fucking Ordering Department. That is their official job title among the night crew and it will be until they fix their fucking shit.
We are a big store, but the Fucking Ordering Department is apparently under the impression that we're a lot bigger than we are, because the ordering is completely out of fucking control. I would deal with the Leviathan Lady, Ayurvedic Guy, and the Trump Preacher every night if it meant getting the ordering under fucking control. It's that bad.
Let me explain. The night crew's main job is to stock the store: the truck comes in during the day with the goods on pallets, but we're the ones who break it all down, move it into the aisles, and actually put it up on the shelves. Afterwards, we face the store--going through and dusting shelves, pulling all the goods forward so they're at the edge of the shelf, stacking cans prettily, etc. On an average night we have fifteen to twenty pallets of shit, all stacked about eight to ten feet high. Seeing my manager (who is about five foot five) breaking down a pet food pallet twice her height is a sight not easily forgotten. (Especially since ten feet of pet food in forty-pound bags each works out to Oh God Fuck Me Someone's Gonna Die.) Oh, and we're chronically understaffed: a store this size in this company should be fielding about nine crew members a night, and we're lucky if we have six.
On stock nights, we also take note of what won't go up. If I have a case of olives and the shelf is already full, I write down the lookup number and mark the case for backstock. Three nights a week, we pull out all the backstock and see what can now go up. The answer is usually "not enough": the shelves are full, we have pallets and pallets of backstock, and the Fucking Ordering Department just keeps ordering more shit we don't need.
Two nights ago, I was stocking canned green beans. There was space on the shelf for six of them. Six cans. How many were on my stack?
Four cases. Ninety-six cans.
And that shit happens all the time. We have no idea how the Fucking Ordering Department hasn't been sacked. Half the time we don't even write down numbers any more because we're getting out two hours late, the facing is suffering, and no matter what we put down it's still going to get ordered. Management brought in a corporate retrainer, yet the Fucking Ordering Department is still merrily rolling along, fucking everything up. My best guess? Someone in there knows where the bodies are buried.
I previously worked retail, and I can say that the ordering department bullfuckery is unfortunately common.
The store I used to work at was a little on the larger size, but certainly not massive, and held a wide variety of items. Whoever worked the ordering department for our store was absolutely fucking clueless about how the store was tanking in sales and so we didn't need as much stock in because not as much stock was going out; more than half our shit ended up on clearance racks and in bins within a couple weeks just so we could get rid of it if we could. And by the next day we'd get a truck full of nothing but children's clothing that we had fuck-all room for, so it just hung around in the back for weeks until it went out-of-season and was immediately discounted when put on the floor.
Ordering departments seem like they don't know shit about the stores they order for. They just order as much as possible and expect the stores to cram it in and sell it all.
Ordering departments seem like they don't know shit about the stores they order for. They just order as much as possible and expect the stores to cram it in and sell it all.
It's like this at my store, too. Things are a little better now since we were allowed to send a ton of shit back to the warehouse, but at one of my stores, we had 85 huge cans of this one hairspray that we sell maybe one of in a week. Why did we have so many? Who was sending us all this shit? Where were the things we'd special ordered and didn't get because the warehouse apparently tosses a coin to decide what orders get approved and which ones get denied?
I work as a "courtesy clerk" at a grocery store which means I bag groceries, gather carts from the parking lot and clean if they need me to. For some reason I've never been able to figure out whenever someone is at the front of the store, it's always ME they come to when they have questions. Not any of the other baggers or even the cashiers, me. Most of the time it's stuff like asking where the bathroom, service desk or ATM is or what to do about the Coinstar slips. It drives me nuts because I'm not very good with people but I can live with it. Sometimes they ask me about certain sales or products but I usually can't answer those because A) I work in the front end and almost never know anything about the other departments and B) I don't shop at this store and as such don't pay attention to the sales or layout. But this particular question the other day was ridiculous. I'm working on one of the lanes closest to the self-scan stations where there are currently two people monitoring them. One guy comes over from one of the stations to ask me something. He tells me something didn't scan right. After getting over my shock I directed him towards the two cashiers monitoring the self-scan stations. I didn't tell him this but I am just a courtesy clerk and don't know how to work the registers so I couldn't be of any help anyway other than a price check if the cashiers on self-scan needed it. Even so, I still get questions from everyone the minute they walk in the front door.
I was a customer at a McDonald's. It's weird how much shit they get, especially ones in Wal-Mart. Either way, me and my mom wanted to eat something. We went inside and low and behold, there was this stereotypical old dude on a scooter.
He was tired of imagery shit. Basically, he wasn't there very long, but for a grand total of 20 minutes he was harassing the staff they had there. (Which, it didn't help, was 3 or 4 older black women) All for a coffee with an Egg McMuffin. The most expensive breakfast sandwich. He never actually ordered a coffee, but he insisted because of the price. He continued insisting and screaming. Everyone was on edge.
It got worse eventually of course with racism. Being close, I managed to hear him talk about "you people" and something similar. He eventually stormed to Wal-Mart with 4 dollars in change because he was an asshole.
I felt bad for them. They were being polite and tried reasoning but he kept screaming at them. I also can't help but admire their patience.
I have a couple of stories, though only from a customer's POV, since I tend to go to school rather than jobseek thanks to grants.
Now, I tend to indulge in fast food on a semi-regular basis. Part of it is because I'm a fat fuck, and part of it is "well since I'm driving, might as well stop by". One of said outfits I do this with is a little place called Jake's Burgers. If you guys don't know what it is, I can best describe it as Wendy's if the food was consistently good. The store is more a fast-food joint than a restaurant, but the stores have no drive-thru. So what happens whenever I crave myself a cheesy burger is that I pull into a parking space and walk into the building.
Now I'm the type of fella that prefers using cash for smaller things; a trait I picked up from my grandparents. But in this case, I was short that day since I had to stop by a store and pick up beans for tomorrow's meal. So I ready my debit card and give the cashier my order.
After a bit, I get my serving of lard and then set off to go to my car. As I began to walk away, I then realize something important: in a fit of Alzheimer's I didn't give the cashier the card, so I haven't paid for the meal. Thing was, the cashier forgot about this too; it was pretty obvious at that too. Now, I had the perfect opportunity to get a free meal courtesy of a collective brain fart. What I did instead was walk back, tell her what happened, and paid for the meal. She was so grateful I was honest I got the meal half off.
Felt good that day.
Up until a few months ago, I would've never eaten at the local Taco Bell. This was for three reasons. The first is that the food there was fickle; if you didn't show up right at noon, 3 PM, or 5 PM, the food was ass. This was because they cooked the stuff in batches and let them fester until someone wanted the specific dish. I'm not joking when I say that I've seen better performances from a school cafeteria when it comes to producing shitty tex-mex food; at least theirs was consistently warm.
The second problem was these guys were insanely slow in spite of this. I remember at one point sitting there for a half fucking hour before leaving for home. I'd have no idea why they were like this if it wasn't for the third big problem: the workers were all entitled sobbing babies.
I'm not shitting you; I remember at one point I had a drive thru operator actually lose her shit and regale to me all of the terrible things that she was going through at the time, and a good chunk of it included bitching at her coworkers and manager. She literally kept crying to me about it and how dare that she need to do basic work that's forced on her by evil manager to earn money even as people were piling in behind me and slowly losing their patience with the situation. I wasn't completely awkward thankfully; I managed to ask if I could order as she drew breath for another tirade, and was rewarded with the world's saddest set of burritos in response after a ten minute wait. This wasn't even the worst case of entitlement and emotional maladaptation I dealt with there.
The winner was when they tried to kick me out over an hour early from closing time. I just show up after a night class finally let out, and decide to walk in to set up an order. The cashier (a different woman) then says that oh, this place was closing for the night. She said this in a very happy way too, which set off warning bells after the whole emotional breakdown I dealt with prior to ths shit. I decide to walk out to look at the sign that describes their operating hours, and in a fit of dickery bugged her until I got my shitty drunk food. The bonus was they gave me a free taco since they wanted my ass gone BAD.
That was when I stopped going there for a while, though I started to go back to it recently for their quesadillas. Turned out the whole crew got a make-over and now the place is competent and good.
Many of These stories all remind me of my retail experience at Marshalls when I was in High School and partly through college. While I don't recall any ridiculous stories off hand (I will post if I think of some) it does remind me how retail, especially this "The Customer is ALWAYS right!" attitude has made people into entitled pricks.
I go to retail stores frequently and I see people treat employees like they're slaves to the whim of some god-king emperor. This is because companies are so afraid of angering a customer , as if they believe one pissed off customer (who chances are was legitimately in the wrong) has the influence to get enough people to boycott the store and put them out of business.
I get the concept of customer service, but some people REALLY need to be woken up from the delusion that employees do not worship the ground you walk on just because you graced a store with your presence.
Many of These stories all remind me of my retail experience at Marshalls when I was in High School and partly through college. While I don't recall any ridiculous stories off hand (I will post if I think of some) it does remind me how retail, especially this "The Customer is ALWAYS right!" attitude has made people into entitled pricks.
I go to retail stores frequently and I see people treat employees like they're slaves to the whim of some god-king emperor. This is because companies are so afraid of angering a customer , as if they believe one pissed off customer (who chances are was legitimately in the wrong) has the influence to get enough people to boycott the store and put them out of business.
I get the concept of customer service, but some people REALLY need to be woken up from the delusion that employees do not worship the ground you walk on just because you graced a store with your presence.
I would have believed it was to completely maximize the dollars they make. And when the higher ups are in nice offices separated from the riffraff, they don't see a shitty customer who refuses to be pleased, and so they see a lost sale.
Also, I took a video of the airbags that I promised @Sailor_Jupiter after much p̶r̶o̶c̶r̶a̶s̶t̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ delay, I just gotta convert/upload.
